ITV could disappear from Virgin Media unless a £40 million disagreement is resolved

ITV chief executive Adam Crozier says a change in the
law means that Virgin must now pay to carry its main
channel.ITV could charge more than £40 million, but Virgin is
reluctant to foot the bill.Virgin has warned that ITV could "go dark" on its
platform unless an agreement is reached.

LONDON - There's a danger ITV could disappear from Virgin Media
unless the cable TV company pays it tens of millions of pounds.

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That was the thinly veiled threat made by ITV chief executive
Adam Crozier this week, as his firm prepares to negotiate a deal
to keep its channels on Virgin TV platforms, including TiVo and
V6.

ITV is able to demand payment after the introduction of the
Digital Economy Act last month. The legislation abolished a
copyright exemption cable TV platforms like Virgin had enjoyed
since 1988. The old law let Virgin carry ITV for its 3.7 million
subscribers without paying ITV a penny. ITV is home to shows such
as Simon Cowell's "Britain's Got Talent" and "Coronation Street."

"It's using our copyright without paying for it," Crozier
told the Media Summit on Thursday, a
conference in London organised by publishing business MBI. "The
simple point about the [change in the] law is, they won't be able
to run our channels without our permission."

ITV will now negotiate new terms with Virgin Media. Virgin
does currently pay for ITV's smaller sister channels,
including ITV2 and ITVBe, but a source close to the talks said
this deal expires in September. It paves the way for ITV to
strike a new agreement, under which it will demand payment for
its flagship station.

The technical term for this is a "retransmission fee" - and it
could be worth more than £40 million to ITV, according to a
Liberum analyst note circulated this week. A source close to ITV
and Virgin's talks did not guide us away from this figure.

ITV could "go dark" on Virgin

Virgin is extremely reluctant to foot such a bill, however.

The company is yet to respond to Business Insider's request for
comment, but has made its position clear in the past. It thinks
the ad revenue ITV makes from being guaranteed a prominent
position in the TV guide (channel 3 in ITV's case) is
compensation enough.